


Make Me Fall Again

by LadyGrey



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, BDSM, Bottom!Sherlock, F/M, Porn, Riding Crop, Sherlolly - Freeform, molly is not an idiot, porn porn porn, top!Molly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-12
Updated: 2013-02-12
Packaged: 2017-11-29 01:01:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/680902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyGrey/pseuds/LadyGrey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Molly learns how to be cruel to be kind.  Sherlock realizes that kindness is not equal to stupidity.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Make Me Fall Again

The man she loves is in the lab again, hunched over the microscope, that sexy purple shirt pulled tight over his angular shoulder blades and devastatingly fit shoulders. His curls are longish and soft, and she imagines again what it would feel like to run her fingers through them. Lately, she has wanted to grab them roughly and yank his head back, force him to look at her.

Because he doesn't. He never looks at her. It means she can stand and stare all she likes, but that isn't satisfying any longer. He could at least treat her like a friend, after everything that happened. Molly isn't a martyr, but his inattention is infuriating. He only ever talks to her when he needs something.

“Molly, get me some more petri dishes with agar. Six of them.”

Ah, so he is aware of her presence after all, and orders her around like his personal servant as usual. Molly is a mouse, the bravest mouse that ever was, because she will once again dangle herself in front of this cruel cat, giving him the chance to bat her aside like she is nothing. It's the only thing she can do, so she just keeps doing it.

“Sherlock, you haven't eaten all day. Please get dinner with me?”

“Busy,” he intones, not even looking up, “Why do you require my assistance retrieving food?” he says, once again pretending to misunderstand.

“I do not require your assistance, I desire your company, you bloody idiot,” Molly doesn't say. She doesn't say it because it doesn't matter, because she knows Sherlock is not an idiot and he knows exactly what she meant. Part of her likes to think he does it to let her down easily, to spare her his rejection. Another part thinks he is doing it to infuriate her, playing one of the games he loves so much.

It works. Molly stalks out of the lab to retrieve his stupid petri dishes from the storage cooler in the morgue. As she walks in she notices his coat thrown on one of the steel tables, and under it is his riding crop. Why does that thing always make an appearance? There can't seriously be that many uses for it in his cases and investigations, yet here it is, popping up again like some kind of a talisman. Trembling, Molly picks it up. She swishes it through the air, encouraged by the sharp whistling sound. She imagines beating the stupid man senseless with it, and finds her own fantasy surprisingly appealing, and giggles to herself.

“MOLLY,” Sherlock bellows from the lab down the hall, “WHERE ARE THOSE PETRI DISHES. I NEED THEM. NOW.”

Molly grits her teeth and closes her eyes, trying to fight down the rage rising in her throat. It isn't right the way he treats her. It isn't right at all. And maybe it's because this time she is holding the instrument of justice in her hand, but this time, this time, the rage takes her and spills over.

* * * * * * * * * *

Sherlock takes a brief break from the microscope to rub his eyes. He is tired, but he will finish here. There are too many samples. The man who wore these boots must have hiked over half of Britain. Sherlock can't find the pattern, he has no idea where the man is from or where his travels routinely take him, and he hates not knowing everything. A few more cultures. A few more cultures could help separate the signal from the noise. But he needs more petri dishes. Where is Molly with his petri dishes?

He bends over the microscope again and hears the swish of her labcoat and the slap of her sensible flats on the tile. Without looking up he holds out his hand to receive them.

What is that hissing sound? Something is wro. . . “AHHH!” Sherlock yanks his burning hand into his body and involuntarily straightens his spine. He glares at Molly. “That was uncalled for! What has gotten into you?”

Molly seethes. Her brows are drawn together and her eyes are hot, but wide open with surprise as if she can't believe what just happened. Ah. It was only a matter of time before his casual rejections drove her to this state. Why must people be so predictable and boring?

Sherlock holds out his hand again. “Molly, this is unbecoming. Give me my riding crop.”

Her hand shakes as she holds it out to him, and he can see tears welling up in her eyes. He reaches for the slender length of the crop, but she is fast, faster than he would have given her credit for, and his hand recoils again, burning even hotter than before as another angry stroke crosses the first on his palm. 

“MOLLY,” he bellows, “STOP THIS INSTANT. Have you lost your mind?”

“Yes,” she snaps, “yes I have lost my mind. But so have you if you think you can keep treating me this way without consequences.”

Sherlock rolls his eyes. “Molly, I am very busy and do not have time for this. Please just get me more petri dishes. . .” he turns to gesture at the pile of spent dishes by his microscope. He hears the hiss of the crop again, but he is too slow to turn around. Sherlock raises his arm to defend himself, but he is not fast enough and the crop strikes him solidly across the shoulders, dragging a strangled scream from his lips and forcing him to his elbows on the lab bench. He barely manages to avoid headbutting the microscope. He turns to her again and opens his mouth to berate her but she beats him to it.

“Shut up, Sherlock! Just shut up! I may have gone round the bend, but you are going to listen to me for once! For once you are going to pay attention to me like I matter.”

And though part of him wants to have the last word, wants to put her down immediately, the greater part of him is wondering why the burning in his palm and on his back is melting into a delicious warmth, and why the anger in her eyes makes him feel suddenly. . .safe? That cannot possibly be correct. He is tired and not processing the situation logically. Sherlock sighs, and looks at Molly Hooper.

“I was asking you out, Sherlock, on a date. Tonight when I asked you to please get dinner with me. I wanted you to go on a date with me.”

“I know,” said Sherlock.

“I know you know, you utter prat. You always know. I've been asking you out for more than two years now, and you have been pretending not to know. Do you have any idea how cruel that is?”

Sherlock tries to hide his smirk, but the truth is that he does know, that he secretly enjoyed pushing Molly's insecurity buttons all this time. He had rationalized it to himself by telling himself that the girl obviously needed a toughening up, but really it was just a rush seeing how far she would let him go, how much she would let him hurt her. She has obviously reached her limit, and Sherlock is intellectually fascinated by the end of his long running experiment in Molly Hooper's limits.

She lifts her arm and Sherlock doesn't even try to stop her this time. Why not? He can't answer that, and the question is burned away by another searing stripe across his shoulders. He whimpers. “Don't you laugh at me, Sherlock Holmes. I am not as stupid as you think I am.”

“Oh really?” he smirks again, expecting her to react by hitting him again, trying to gain control of the situation by baiting her. Oh, people are so easy to manipulate and Sherlock is always so disappointed. He sighs, knowing exactly what is going to happen next.

But it doesn't. Molly drops her arm and steps closer, too close to swing the crop again. She sets it on the lab bench and puts her hand on Sherlock's shoulder, right over one of the welts. Liquid pleasure courses from the spot over Sherlock's body, and he is suddenly at a loss. Molly lowers her face to his and grips his chin, forcing him to look at her. 

“I think I have just made a deduction,” she says with her usual unsure smile. Perhaps that is simply a quirk of her presentation, and not actually an indication that she lacks confidence and conviction?

“Oh really?” he says again, trying to smirk but somehow failing and instead smiling nervously.

She lets go of his chin and runs her fingers through his hair, smiling. He lets her. It actually feels rather nice.

“Sherlock,” she says, still petting his curls.

“Hmmmm?” he says, opening his eyes to look at her again. When had he closed them?

“Why haven't you gotten up off this stool?”

“What?” Sherlock frowns. The question lacks context. What kind of answer is she looking for? It is hard to work out a puzzle with her fingers in his hair like that.

“I assaulted you. Why are you still sitting here?”

“I. . .” oh, that is a good question. He is almost twice the size of this little lab mouse. He could have easily overpowered her immediately, or at the very least stood up and gotten out of reach. And yet here he sits, letting her do as she pleases. “I honestly don't know,” he says.

“You have a flawless memory,” she says, “right?”

Another question without context. “Yes,” he answers, “but I delete things that don't matter.”

“So tell me, do you remember how many times I have asked you out, and you have acted cruel and indifferent?”

Sherlock closes his eyes and goes to his mind palace. Molly has her own room there, and he enters it and shuffles through her stuttered invitations as he counts them. In his mind palace, they are in a shoebox with pressed flowers and other ephemera collected by teenage girls. “Yes,” he admits, “I remember.”

“I guess that means I matter,” she says, standing up and taking her hand out of his hair. He misses it immediately.

“That,” Sherlock coughs to clear the sudden tightness in his throat, “That is an excellent deduction.”

“Well,” she says, “how many times?”

“Thirty two, counting your invitation tonight,” he admits.

“Thirty two,” she says, resting her hand again on the handle of the riding crop, and looking at him so much more calmly than before.

“You can't be serious, “ he says, licking his suddenly dry lips, knowing that she is.

“You could get up,” she says. Her smile is kind again.

But he can't. Sherlock is frozen in his seat. He swallows and looks at his palm. Two angry red lines cross it. He can't see his back, but he can feel even the soft silk of his shirt rubbing angrily against the welts there. Apparently, he is trembling. He places both palms flat on the lab bench, and looks at Molly again. She seems to be waiting for something.

* * * * * * * * * * *

Molly could not have forseen the vulnerability in Sherlock Holme's eyes in a million years. She knew he had feelings. She has always known that. He guards them jealously and does not like to share them with others, but he often forgets Molly is there, and so she sees, but she's never seen this. He looks confused, like he doesn't know what to do. The great detective cannot deduce himself the way Molly has. It is a delicious feeling, but she also feels sorry for him. She understands why he is always so cruel to her, she really does. And yes, she wants to punish him for that, beat him for each and every moment of feigned ignorance, but she is shocked to realize that he wants her to just as much.

“If I were very cruel,” she says, “I would walk out of here right now and bring you your petri dishes.”

“But you are not cruel, Molly Hooper. You are the kindest person I know,” Sherlock chokes on his next words and Molly waits patiently for them. “I am cruel. I would do that. I would do that to hurt you, so you would never want me again, the way I have done more than 32 times. Why do you still want me?”

Molly wants to throw the crop to the floor and kick it away and wrap her arms around him. She wants to draw him close in a hug and a cuddle and tell him he is loved and valued and worthwhile. But she has been watching for such a long time, and she knows that no such display will make him feel that way, because this is Sherlock Holmes, and he must be shown rather than told. She taps the riding crop on the bench.

“You think you deserve this, don't you?”

“Yes, of course,” he says softly. 

“Well, you don't.”

“But I have been so cruel to you. You have every right. . .”

“No,” Molly interrupts him. “You deserve forgiveness.”

“Forgiveness,” Sherlock echoes, “I've never really understood the concept. It is stupid to deny yourself the valid conclusions of your own experience.”

“And yet John forgives you for leaving him alone for so long.”

Sherlock winces as if she had struck another physical blow. “He can't possibly,” Sherlock protests.

“He can, because he loves you, Sherlock.”

“He can't possibly,” Sherlock says again, lifting his hands off the table to cover his eyes.

“Why not?” asks Molly, moving close again, plucking his hands off his face one at a time to peer into his eyes. “Is it because you don't deserve it?”

Sherlock's hands start to shake. Molly is out of her depth. She knows he is only letting her talk to him this way because of the riding crop in her hand, and she hasn't fully worked out what that means yet, though she knows what she has to do with it. 

“Yes,” Sherlock admits, “I do not deserve it.”

“Oh Sherlock,” she says, running her fingers through his glorious curls again, “you beautiful idiot.”

He just looks at her with eyes undone, and she steps back.

“Thirty two, then?” she asks.

“Thirty two,” he confirms.

Molly slides the microscope and the used petri dishes out of the way, leaving a clear bench top in case his arms fly, because he is so very tall and lanky. She doesn't want to have to clean up broken glass along with this broken man. 

_Molly, what are you doing?_

_I am saving Sherlock Holmes,_ she says to herself, _again._

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Molly is being a little cruel with all the talking. He'd underestimated her, he realized, as she said all the perfect things to get under his skin, the sorts of things he easily deduces about others and uses against them. Why had she never done it before? Ah. Because she is kind the way that he is not, and isn't that just the crux of this whole thing? He cruelty is a kindness, her anger a balm, because not a single person has been able to quite look him in the eyes since he had returned from the dead, especially John. And yet, for some reason, they all stayed, they all helped, they all orbited around him as they had always done and it is the one thing Sherlock cannot figure out except perhaps in the context of addiction and himself the drug. But it doesn't fit, because the drug does not need it's users, and he needs them, he needs Lestrade and he needs Molly and he especially needs John, but he can't reach them. He and John are still staring intensely at each other from a distance, Sherlock on a ledge, John on the ground below, helpless. 

Molly sees. Of course Molly sees. She isn't angry as she picks up the riding crop, she is kind. She is doing this because Sherlock needs to see, even if he can't yet. He knows that certain ecstatic states and insights can be achieved through pain, and is no stranger to self injury for that purpose, but this is different somehow in a way he cannot elucidate. He stares at his hands and waits for the first hiss of the crop.

There it is! Ah! And there the blossom of fire across his back, just below his shoulders this time. Sherlock's fingers curl into the tabletop as he winces, but does not make a sound.

“That's one,” says Molly.

Sherlock closes his eyes and waits. 

Hiss! “Ahhhhh!” he cries out this time. That one was harder, diagonal across the first three. It had wrapped into the tender skin of his armpit. He bangs his hands on the table and whimpers.

“Two,” says Molly softly.

It isn't as he thought it would be. It hurts, and he cannot control his emotional reaction to the pain. Sherlock has been beaten before, many times, even once by John to perpetrate a ruse, but the pain had never resonated so deeply as it does now. 

Another hiss, a new welt, this one mid back. He chokes on a sob and pounds the table again, gritting his teeth. 

“Three.”

It is the sixth stroke that finally releases the sob he's been holding back, a hard solid strike directly on his right kidney, possibly a little damaging, definitely unsafe. He is sure Molly did it on purpose, she is a doctor after all. Sherlock lets his head fall to the table and grips his hair with his hands. Hard won tears drip onto the table and he can't make them stop. Well done Molly, well done.

By ten he is sobbing openly, keening with every new stroke. Molly is crossing them intentionally now, switching sides for better angles. 

Eleven tears his shirt open at the side as the tip of the crop wraps around his ribs. 

Twelve is right on top of it, and he falls off the stool as his knees give out. He hadn't realized he'd been supporting himself at all, but suddenly he is on the floor on his knees, gripping the edge of the table with white knuckles, and the stool is tipped over beside him. Oh, cruel cruel Molly Hooper! He turns his face away from her as she comes back to his side. Her hands twine under his arms and she lifts him up, bending him over the table. 

“This is better anyway,” she says, “Hold on over there so you don't fall again.”

Sherlock stretches his long arms for the table edge. He can just reach it. He knows his knees will not hold, so he grips it tightly and lets Molly push his torso into the table. Sherlock cannot decide whether to be relieved that she has a new target or not. His back is ragged and he can feel blood trickling down in several places, but there is something so much more humiliating about this posture than the last. Still, he is well beyond protesting, and simply lays his cheek on the table, watching a new pool of tears form below and flow back warmly over his skin. He takes a deep breath and steels himself for what he is sure is coming next.

But it doesn't.

“Sherlock,” says Molly, “let me forgive you.”

“Wh. . .what?” he stammers.

“Let me forgive you, and this will all be over.”

“No!” he says, stubbornly, because he isn't ready he can't be ready he doesn't understand how to be ready.

She sighs. Another whistling hiss and Sherlock screams as she catches him across the lower thighs right above his knees, which instantly give out and put him back on the floor, sobbing.

“Thirteen,” she says, twining her fingers through his hair again, this time a little more firmly, pulling his head back to look up at her. She is an angel of mercy to Sherlock, in that moment. His tears blur his vision, but he can see she is still looking on him kindly and he doesn't understand. “Let me forgive you,” she says again.

He can't even answer this time, just shakes his head. Her eyes soften and she loosens her grip on his hair to pet him like a child a few times. Then she sighs again and grips him harshly and guides him back up over the table. 

The next three land firmly on his buttocks, parallel, and are more manageable. The hardest part is fielding Molly's pleas, each time, to allow her to forgive him. She is breaking him down. He wants to be forgiven but doesn't know how. 

Seventeen lands across his back again, sharply reigniting all the previous lines of fire there. “Oh god, oh god, Molly,” Sherlock begs, “I can't. Stop, please stop!”

“Let me forgive you,” she says, “and I will stop.”

“I can't!” he keens. “I DON'T KNOW HOW,” he bellows, banging his fists on the table in frustration. He sobs, bangs his head several times until Molly grabs his hair again and stops him. 

“Don't do that!” she snaps, yanking his head back almost painfully, but then, “Oh, sorry!” She slowly lowers his head back to the table and lets loose her grip, petting his hair again. It undoes him in a way the pain could not and he sobs helplessly over the table. 

“Help me, Molly Hooper, please help me. You killed me once, please kill me again. Please!” he whispers.

* * * * * * * * * ** * * * * *

Tears run down Molly's face too, but Sherlock hasn't noticed yet. Seeing him this way is killing her, twisting her heart like a rag being rung out. She knows he doesn't mean that she should beat him to his death, he just needs the sort of peace death brings. . .or the peace of forgiveness. In his state she can understand how they may feel like the same thing. The twisted horrible solution presents itself and she swallows hard and raises the crop.

Molly slashes down on Sherlock's left thigh, hard, cruel, wrapping the crop into the tender skin inside his thigh. Even through his trousers she knows it must hurt, and his screaming sob confirms it. But she does not stop this time. Instead she strikes him again, very close to the previous cut, and says “Fall, Sherlock!” and hits him again saying only “Fall! Fall! Fall!” each time. She switches sides and attacks his other thigh. His screams are hoarse now and he is writhing on the table trying to escape. She hits his back a few times. She has lost count but is paying attention to something else, waiting for the hint of a fall. . .and there it is.

Molly tosses the riding crop aside and catches him in her arms as he slides off the table. She pulls him back into a hug, letting her small back hit the cabinets against the wall. His head falls against her shoulder and he stares into nothing, crying silently now, but unceasingly. 

“There, there,” she says, “I forgive you. I do. You are good, Sherlock Holmes. You are so good. You are the best man I know. You deserve forgiveness and love, not pain and loneliness. I'm not the only one who thinks so.”

Sherlock opens his mouth to speak, but the only thing that comes out is a wheezing sound and a sputter. He tries again, and manages to choke out one word: “John?”

“Yes,” says Molly, “Yes of course John.”

Sherlock nods and lets himself cry. Molly isn't sure how long they have been there on the floor, Sherlock in her arms, when she realizes he has stopped crying and is just lying there, breathing shallowly.

“Are you alright, Sherlock?” she ventures.

“Yes, Molly Hooper, I am fine,” his voice still isn't steady, but it has some of it's usual confidence back, a bit of wonder like he has just made a case breaking deduction. He tilts his head back to look at her, and this time he is really looking. “Thank you. Are you?”

Molly isn't sure what to say, so she lowers her head and kisses him. Gently, carefully, like he is made of glass, which she has just proved he certainly isn't, but she kisses him gently just the same. When she lifts her face away his eyes are closed, and he emits a soft “oh!” sound. She smiles. She has waited forever to do that. Who knew all she needed to do was make him cry? But even as she thinks it she knows it's more than that. He'd needed to be broken open before he would allow anyone to show him love. Would it last?

Sherlock opens his eyes. “Please,” he says, “do that again.”

Molly does, but this time she takes his mouth hard, nipping at his lower lip, squeezing his battered body in her small but strong arms. He whimpers and struggles, but presses himself more deeply into the kiss. She soars. Suddenly she can have everything she wants. Molly grabs his hair roughly and yanks him up and to the side so she can squirm out from under his lanky frame. He squeaks, but allows her to move him and push him to the ground, wonder still in his eyes. He winces as his back hits the tiles, but Molly ignores it and rips off the tattered remains of his shirt. Buttons fly. It's a shame, she had quite liked that shirt, but perhaps it is time for new beginnings for everything.

She kisses Sherlock again, and is pleased to notice that his eyes are now shining with something besides tears, something she is sure, something she allows herself to believe, is arousal. She trails kisses down his pale, naked chest, over his stomach, between his hipbones and yes, yes, she had been right. Sherlock Holmes is hard in his trousers. 

Molly makes quick work of his shoes and his trousers, is tickled that he isn't wearing any pants, and quickly removes her own from under her skirt, pausing only to notice that they are sopping wet before flinging them aside. She slithers back up Sherlock's body to kiss him again. He lies quietly, letting her have her way in silence silence except when she forces small sounds from him with her touch and her mouth. She lifts her skirt and lowers her wet folds to rub them along the ridge of his cock. It is long and slender like the rest of him. 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

He moans, “Oh god. Oh. . .Molly, I've never. . .ooohhhhhhh” everything burns, his entire body is molten, from the welts rubbing painfully on the cool floor to the skin beneath the warm woman pressing herself on top of him, but none of that tops the roiling boil in his abdomen as Molly rubs herself against him. 

Her hands are in his hair again, her lips on his cheek, kind kind Molly Hooper. “Do you want me to stop?” she asks.

“Noooooooo!” he says, with more passion than he even knew he knew how to express.

“Alright,” she says, “lift up onto your elbows please.”

He does, because she asked it, though his arms feel like jelly and he doesn't know what she's about. Molly kisses him again, pulling him up further, teasing him as she backs away and forces him to chase the kiss. It is so sweet when he finally catches it that he whimpers again and has to break the kiss the exhale another soft “oh!”

“Oh Sherlock, you beautiful thing. You are so beautiful, so wonderful,” Molly says, and he believes it, believes everything she says, and for the first time he can remember he feels worthwhile to someone for a reason other than his skills and his intellect. 

She draws him into another gentle kiss, a kiss so painful in it's kind gentleness that Sherlock cannot stand it. He tries to deepen the kiss, but she pulls away just enough to disallow it, licks at the slit between his lips with her tongue. He opens and lets her in, but even her tongue in his mouth is gentle, flicking over his own tongue leaving a tiny trail of warmth where it touches.

And Sherlock is just getting used to this when she shifts her hips and slides the tip of him into her. Her hand is in his hair and she holds him in the kiss when he whimpers and tries to let his head fall backwards. His breathing hitches and gets shallower. He tries to push in but she lifts her hips and makes him chase her, just like she had with the kiss. Maddening! He is out of his depth, not in control, and he loves it, craves it more than any drug he's ever taken. So he settles and he waits and he lets her tease his lips and his cock until his entire body is trembling, whimpers rising involuntarily from his throat and disappearing into her soft, gentle, infuriating mouth. 

Then she pulls away just a little, places her cheek next to his. She nips his ear and he jumps. She giggles. “More?” she whispers, breath dancing through his hair.

“Oh please Molly yes! More!” 

He feels her smile against his cheek as her hands tighten in his hair. She grinds down, burying his shaft inside herself, at the same time she drags him by the hair into a hard, punishing kiss. He tries to call out but his mouth is trapped by hers, and her tongue wraps around his own and pulls it into her too and he is penetrating and being penetrated and falling, falling utterly, to pieces as she begins to rock her hips, lifting, pushing down, lifting, pushing down, forward and back and Sherlock feels the boiling in his belly burning, burning through him and up up into her and it's too fast but he doesn't care and finally his head falls back because she has let him go because she is screaming his name and he is screaming hers and then they both fall, too hard, down onto the tile, arms finally collapsing, a quivering two-bodied puddle on the floor of the lab at St. Barts.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 

Eventually, Molly manages to roll off, though Sherlock hadn't seemed to mind her laying on him. Still, she wants to look at him, and holding her head up is still hard, so she rolls off and lays her head on his shoulder. He is staring at the ceiling, and his face is clear and relaxed and his eyes are still wide with wonder. He is beautiful, a dark broken angel, lying on the floor of her lab. His lab. Their lab. 

He lets his head loll to the side to meet her eyes. “I had no idea,” he breathes, testing a tiny smile on her, “that was amazing.”

“I know,” she says, “you are kind of an idiot you know.”

He chuckles, a deep rumbling thing that leads to a wince. “Ow,” he complains.

“Oh, oh no,” Molly feels a little guilty now that it is all over, “Are you alright? Are you hurt?”

Sherlock chuckles again, and sits up. Molly sees the bloody welts on his back and gasps. She hadn't really been prepared for this part. He pulls her up too, shifting to face her so she can't see them. “I am fine, Molly, I am more than fine. I am remade by your kind cruelty. I see things more clearly than I have since I met John for the first time.”

Molly smiles. She has never heard him admit that before, though it was pretty bloody obvious to everyone else.

“Oh,” he says, realizing something. “I need to call John. I need to talk to him.”

“You will, Sherlock, but let me clean you up first, let me patch you up and get you something to wear.”

His eyes follow hers as they sweep across the clothing thrown about the room, finally landing on the tattered and bloody remains of his shirt. They both laugh together and Molly's stomach flip-flops and she is a stupid schoolgirl again, her confidence lost in the depths of her feelings for this man. He looks at her. He notices her. He sees her smile slip away. The most observant man in the world stops feigning ignorance and pulls her into a kiss. Molly clings to him, drawing another gasp and a wince, followed by another chuckle. “Molly Hooper,” he says, “you do not ever have to worry that I will not notice you again.”

“Oh Sherlock,” Molly sighs, and snuggles against his front, tucking her hands into her lap so as not to scratch the welts on his back again, “that is all I have ever wanted.”

“It seems that all I have ever needed was for someone to see me as clearly as I see everyone else.”

“Except me,” says Molly.

“Yes,” Sherlock agrees, “except you. But I will not make that mistake again.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Molly fetches a medkit and a pair of scrubs from elsewhere in the hospital and tends to his wounds before allowing him to put his trousers back on and slip into the top. John is called to come pick him up, at her insistence. 

“You shouldn't be alone,” she says.

“You could come with me, obviously.”

“I know,” Molly says, “but I don't know how long all this will last, and I want you to have a chance to talk to John before it fades. It's important.”

“Kind Molly Hooper, always thinking about others before herself. What is that like?” Sherlock asks, not mocking, just curious.

“Oh, it's alright, I don't have a problem thinking about myself when it counts.” She blushes, thinking about the way she rode him to her climax, and about all the ways she would like to do so again.

Sherlock surprises her with a rare goofy grin, his mouth just as big as the rest of him. “Indeed!”

They begin to tidy the lab, removing evidence of their tryst, replacing the microscope and storing the petri dishes. When Sherlock finds the riding crop, he takes it almost shyly to Molly, saying, “perhaps you should keep this?”

But she pushes it back at him. “Perhaps you should, in case it ever needs to find it's way here again.”  
Oh. Oh very good Molly Hooper. Very astute. How had he never noticed how brilliant this mouse is? He would keep it, and if he ever finds himself lost, it will appear again in her morgue, and she will know what he needs. She sees him. Really sees him. 

And it is at that moment, that moment when Sherlock is clutching the riding crop and staring with blown pupils into her kind, yes, kind, but not stupid, never stupid (and when had those two become conflated in his mind?) eyes that John walks into the lab.

“Alright, Sherlock, I'm here. What is it this time?”

Sherlock and Molly both swivel toward him as one. “Um,” says Sherlock.

Molly is more clearheaded. “Sherlock needs help home, John. Please?”

“Why does he need help home?” John asks, “He can walk.”

“Barely,” Sherlock says, with a glance at Molly. They both dissolves into giggles.

John isn't an idiot either, and his lips twist in understanding. “Really? You two?”

“Er, well, yes, it appears so,” Sherlock says.

“Ah, it's about bloody time you idiot!” John claps him heartily on the back and Sherlock gasps and drops the riding crop on his foot. John tilts his head, questioning only briefly, before understanding dawns and he pulls down the neck of the cotton scrub shirt to see the fresh bandages on Sherlock's back. “Oh,” he says. “Oh!” He picks up the riding crop and turns to Molly, pointing it at her. “You?” he asks.

Molly shrugs, looking only a little bit guilty. 

Sherlock pulls her into a hug and gives her a soft kiss on the cheek. “I'm fine John. More than fine. We have a lot to talk about. I'll explain everything. Can I have that back please?”

John gives him the riding crop and glances at the ceiling, as if asking god for patience, or perhaps for answers. “Alright, Sherlock, let's go home.”

Sherlock follows him out of the lab and retrieves his coat and scarf from the morgue, but he realizes he forgot something important. He hurries back to the lab, where Molly is just leaning against the lab bench, staring out the window.

“Molly Hooper?”

“Yes?”

“Would you go to dinner with me tomorrow?”

She smiles and then laughs. “Yes, Sherlock, any time, always.”

**Author's Note:**

> Sherlolly is not my OTP. I've been dealing with some stuff lately though revolving around forgiveness, which features heavily in the other thing I'm writing too, and for some reason this came into my head the night before last and I had to get it out in writing. It's out, I am empty, I am spent. I hope that even if this isn't your OTP you can still enjoy the porn ;)


End file.
